Preproceedings 2006 - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

Essence/Attribute in Islamic Philosophy and
Comparative Philosophy
14. God in Aristotle and Ibn Sina
15. Theology and the Quiddity of the Divine Attributes in
the View of Maimonides and Allamah Tabataba’I
16. Negative Theology in the Views of Maimonides and
Qadi Sa‘id Qummi
17. Divine Essence and Attributes in the View of the
Peripatetics and Illuminationists
18. God in the View of Sohravardi
19. Dialogue about the Divine Essence in Islamic
Philosophy
20. A Review of the Attributes of God in the Views of
Ibn Sina, Mulla Sadra, and Abd al-Jabbar Mu‘tazili
21. A Review of the Criteria for Distinguishing the
Attributes of Essence and Action in the Views of the
Exegetes and Philosophers
Needless to say, the dissertations do not all keep
neatly to these categories. There are comparisons
between philosophers and theologians, philosophers and
interpreters of the Qur’an, and general discussions, as
well.
Discussions of Qadi Sa‘id Qummi are often
featured, since he represents a kind of negative theology
that is generally perceived as extremist for its denial of the
reality of the positive attributes. Students are encouraged
to study how the position taken by Mulla Sadra is able to
overcome the difficulties faced by Qadi Sa‘id’s negative
theology.
There are structural similarities between the
discussions of essence/attribute and substance/accident,
although the discussions are completely separate. There
are no discussions of substance/attribute or
essence/accident in Islamic philosophy and theology.
However, in Mulla Sadra, the identity of attributes with
essence is mirrored in his claim that accidents have no
existence other than the existence of the substance in
which they inhere. Indeed, Mulla Sadra’s views about
substantial motion may be seen as a solution to the
problem that arises when the Shi‘ite theological claim of
the identity of attributes with the essence is used as a
model for the relation between substance and accidents in
changing entities.
Substance/Accident
All of the dissertations about substance/accident focus on
the doctrine of substantial motion, which is one of the most
outstanding features of Mulla Sadra’s thought. Some of the
dissertations are purely descriptive, and attempt to present
a clear exposition of Mulla Sadra’s views on the issue.
Others seek to defend Mulla Sadra’s views from
objections, or compare his views with others.
General Explanations of Substantial Motion
1. Substantial Motion (1992)
332
A Report on Graduate Work in Qom on the Problems of … - Narjess Javandel
The M.A. thesis of Husayn Ali Qasimzadeh is
divided into five chapters. The first gives the
background to the substance notion in ancient
Greek philosophy. The second chapter deals with
the problems of defining motion and substance, as
well as the place of substance among the
categories and they types of substance. The third
chapter reviews the philosophical and theological
reasons for substantial motion. The fourth chapter
considers the most famous objections to this
doctrine and the answers given to them. Finally, the
fifth chapter summarizes Mulla Sadra’s position and
elaborates the implications of substantial motion for
the relation between rest and motion, the temporal
origination of the world, time as a fourth material
dimension, the corporeal resurrection, the relation
between mind and body, and the rejection of
reincarnation.
2. Substance and Accident in the Views of Ibn Sina and
Mulla Sadra (2000)
Muhammad Mahdi Mishkati compares the views of
the Islamic peripatetic school led by Ibn Sina with
the views of the school of Transcendent Wisdom led
by Mulla Sadra on the topic of substance/accident.
While Ibn Sina is committed to the existence of both
material and immaterial substances, Mulla Sadra,
following Sohravardi, accepts the existence of a
third, intermediate kind of substance: imaginal
substances. Imaginal substances are like immaterial
substances in that they do not have a place or
spatial direction in the external world; but they are
like corporeal substances in that they have a shape
and size. Ibn Sina held that accidents themselves
possess higher order accidents. Mulla Sadra
rejected the arguments for this position without
offering any arguments for the contrary position.
Most famously, Ibn Sina and Mulla Sadra differ on
whether there can be motion or change in accidents
only, or in substance as well as accidents. Mulla
Sadra argues that if Ibn Sina accepts that there is a
persisting subject, primary matter, through
generation and corruption, this can also serve as
the subject of substantial motion, with the difference
that in generation and corruption the change is
discontinuous and sudden while in substantial
motion the change is gradual. In addition to this
argument, Mulla Sadra also maintains that the
subject of motion is not a thing at rest that
possesses motion, but that it is the moving
existence of the subject itself, whose unity is
preserved through continuity rather than through
relation to a stationary subject or matter. The view
of the relationship between substance and accident
differs in Ibn Sina and Mulla Sadra in that Ibn Sina
uses a causal model to explain the relationship.
Substance is the agent cause of its accidents. In
Mulla Sadra, however, the relation of substance to
accident is much more intimate. Accidents are
explained as relations of dependence to their
substance that lack any existence of their own other
than the existence of the substance.
3. A Review and Criticism of the Objection to Substantial
Motion from the Persistence of the Subject (1992)
Muhammad Baqiri Sabzavar devotes his M.A. thesis
to Mulla Sadra’s replies to the objection that if there
were a change in substance, there would be no
subject to undergo the change. These replies are
based on the principle that existence has a
fundamental priority with regard to quiddity, and the
idea that in substantial motion the object that moves
is identified with its motion. In short, the subject of